


The Barometer of Normal

by DrowningByDegrees, Lorien



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes is good with Kids, Bucky Barnes-centric, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Protective Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 05:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11155617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrowningByDegrees/pseuds/DrowningByDegrees, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorien/pseuds/Lorien
Summary: He got used to the hospital smell, and the sharp need to look over his shoulder dissipated as he patiently fielded the most pleasantly uncomplicated conversations he’d had in longer than he could remember. Kids didn’t care how many innocent people Hydra had ordered him to take out. Kids didn’t care how deep his programming ran, or if he’d chosen to take up with the enemy. They wanted to know if he could pick up a car, and what it was like running around with Captain America, and if the Winter Soldier liked pancakes.Recovery doesn't mean a person always gets all better. Sometimes, recovery is finding a new baseline. There are few people who understand this better than Bucky Barnes.





	The Barometer of Normal

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much [NurseDarry](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NurseDarry/pseuds/NurseDarry) and [CryoBucky](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryo_Bucky/pseuds/Cryo_Bucky) for being awesome betas and to [Majorkoalatea](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorKoalaTea/pseuds/MajorKoalaTea) for a whole hell of a lot of cheerleading <3

 

It had been a year since the spectre of the law had been swept away, but people’s memories were longer than that. For some, it didn’t matter that he’d worked shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the Avengers and saved countless lives since being exonerated. For some, he was irredeemable, and often Bucky agreed with them. Never once did he forget the price others had paid for his existence, or the controversial nature of his freedom.

 

It was exactly that controversy that left Bucky shocked when the children’s hospital had asked for him. Surely, it was a mistake. Surely, they wanted Steve, who was kind and good and unsullied by scandal. Maybe Tony, whose aggravatingly flashy brand of showmanship would surely cheer up a ward full of sick kids. Sam would have been a far better choice, if Bucky’s opinion counted for anything. He was soft spoken and empathetic, and while Bucky would never underestimate Sam, the guy never actually _seemed_ imposing.

 

They wanted him though, and Bucky wasn’t going to disappoint the kids just because the hospital had shit judgment. Aside from a duffel bag with a change of clothes, he suited up the way he would have for any mission, remembering to stow away the arsenal he was generally wearing at any given time. Somehow, showing up to the children’s ward prepared for a war didn’t strike him as the kind of thing that would get him invited back.

 

There was a ride waiting for him outside, an upscale SUV that Bucky immediately pegged as part of Tony’s fleet. That put the matter to rest, Bucky thought bitterly. This was quite likely to be less of a hospital request and more of Stark’s efforts to brighten the Avengers’ reputation. Bucky was a liability so long as a swath of the country thought he might still be a threat. The cameraman that greeted him the moment he opened the door only confirmed Bucky’s suspicions, and he sat down in the back seat with a huff.

 

The ride was a short one, and by the time they reached the hospital, the worst of Bucky’s sour mood had passed. It was hard to put much effort into thinking how he’d tell Tony off later when he knew it wasn’t actually going to happen. The man was an arrogant asshole who never shut up. He was also right. Bucky had tolerated worse things for worse reasons. He could do this.

 

Walking into the hospital was the hardest part, and Bucky was terribly grateful the camera wasn’t on yet. He had barely gotten into the foyer of the hospital when the smell hit him. It was antiseptic and illness, detergent masking the threat of death that lingered. It gnawed uncomfortably at the raw edges of his mind, forcing him to swallow down whispers of a life he’d been made to live for decades.

 

He could take down a room full of enemy agents blindfolded. There wasn’t a weapon Bucky had ever encountered that he couldn’t put to efficient use. He’d rewritten history in ways both good and terrible. By all accounts, the Winter Soldier was a force of nature, but just then, reaching the elevator without a breakdown felt like a miracle. Some days were fine… better than half if he was counting. He never quite knew when ‘not fine’ was going to come out of the dark corner it lurked in though, shrouding him in a panic that shuddered along his nerves and stopped up his throat like he’d been drinking glue.

 

If anyone here had known him at all, they’d have seen the signs. He smiled at the receptionist as he signed in, a wooden thing, carved on his lips and never reaching his eyes. The grace Bucky moved with had fled him for stiff, hurried steps as he forced himself further into the hospital instead of trying to escape it. Once in the elevator, Bucky sagged minutely against the handrail, scrubbing a hand over his face. If anyone in the building knew a thing about Bucky, they’d have known he was one Jenga block away from crumbling, but even the cameraman was a stranger.

 

_Get it together, Barnes_ . By all accounts, this was ridiculous. Reason told him there was nothing to fear. He was a visitor and not a patient. He was walking on his own two legs into a public hospital to visit children. Nothing here was going to pull him back under. Even if someone meant him harm - and they didn’t. That was a ridiculous notion he hated himself for entertaining - he was the single most dangerous thing in this building. Bucky didn’t need weapons to be lethal. He _was_ a weapon.

 

Bit by bit, he unwound himself. He had a choice, and he had chosen this. Even if he’d known the source from the get go, Bucky knew his decision would have been the same. Taking a breath, he reminded himself that the sterile walls and cloying stench of disinfectant were meant to save lives here, not bend them out of shape. He could be a part of that, and despite the way it twisted in his stomach to do so, he nodded at the cameraman and stepped through the swinging double doors.

 

It should have been a happy moment, and on the surface, it was. Bucky leapt at the chance to do some good. While sometimes adults looked at him like he was a Hydra agent only acting under the guise of heroism, there was none of that in the hospital ward. The staff was thrilled to see the children happy, and the children couldn’t seem to see Bucky for the monster he was so sure lurked underneath.

 

For a little while, Bucky was the man he remembered himself having been once upon a time. Maybe it wasn’t real, but he could play the part he needed to. He smiled at the right time (the right time where a ward full of children was concerned was _always_ ). He joked with the nurses, and answered the endless barrage of questions. If he didn’t think too hard about it, he could imagine what Hydra made him to be was no more than a bad dream.

 

Bucky forgot all about the cameraman and Tony. He got used to the hospital smell, and the sharp need to look over his shoulder dissipated as he patiently fielded the most pleasantly uncomplicated conversations he’d had in longer than he could remember. Kids didn’t care how many innocent people Hydra had ordered him to take out. Kids didn’t care how deep his programming ran, or if he’d chosen to take up with the enemy. They wanted to know if he could pick up a car, and what it was like running around with Captain America, and if the Winter Soldier liked pancakes.

 

Mostly, they wanted to know what he could do. Where grown-ups often looked at him as something to fear, his current company was endlessly impressed. How many of them Bucky could pick up with his metal arm, the hospital’s young patients prodded. The answer was that they ran out of arm to hang on to long before they got heavy enough to keep Bucky from being able to lift them. He could get used to this, Bucky thought in passing. There was a certain appeal in being a source of joy rather than danger. It turned out he was every bit as good at giving piggyback rides and reading stories as he was at sniping enemies. Arrogant ass that Tony was, Bucky was still considering thanking him for this. Maybe. Just a little.

 

As reluctant as Bucky had been to come in to the hospital, time passed entirely too quickly. Bucky forgot all about the cameras after a while. When his phone buzzed to remind him of dinner plans a few blocks away, he was almost sorry. He never felt like a hero out in the middle of the chaos he created, but here, surrounded by smiles and laughter and faces devoid of anything like judgment, there was no other word for it.

 

His efforts to leave were met with a chorus of demands that he come back soon. There were much worse things, he decided, than a room full of children wanting your company. The cracked, fragile feeling that lingered most of the time was nowhere to be found, and even as he headed down the hall to leave, he couldn’t help smiling a bit to himself.

 

Bucky almost walked right past the last hospital room door, assuming it was as empty as all the others. It was only chance that he happened to look in, spying the room’s tiny occupant. She was a little thing, a mess of long, blonde hair hanging in her face. At first, Bucky thought she might be asleep, but her drawn, exhausted expression broke into a bright smile when she spotted him.

 

“Mister Winter Soldier!” she called out, waving at him with one arm. The other was a heavily bandaged stump ending just below her right shoulder. Judging by the drape of the blankets, one of her legs was missing too.

 

Surely, Steve wouldn’t fault Bucky for being late. He’d had quite enough of the PR aspect of this visit though, and he pointedly closed the door most of the way in front of the cameraman who tried to follow him in. The little girl looked like the last thing she needed was an audience. “It’s just Bucky. Can I come sit with you a minute?”

 

“Bucky,” the little girl repeated, nodding at him like he’d just asked if she wanted Christmas a few months early. She stuck out her hand to shake his, small, slender fingers dwarfed by the metal that engulfed them. “I’m Lily. I’ve been hoping you were gonna come visit _forever_.”

 

“Oh yeah? Why’s that? Forever is an awfully long time.” It was easier, Bucky decided, without an audience. There was no staging or focusing on what made for the best on camera moments, or any of that ridiculousness. There was just someone who looked genuinely thrilled to see him.

 

“You’re like me, but you’re a hero,” she pointed out, curiously tracing the plates of Bucky’s wrist, “I wanna be like you when I grow up.”

 

Had it been anyone else, he’d have protested, no matter how good he was feeling at the moment. Anyone calling him a hero clearly hadn’t seen his body count. When it came down to it though, that self deprecation would have just been cruelty here. Maybe he thought her perception was an illusion, but he wasn’t going to be the one to take it away. Bucky flashed her a smile. “Sounds like a plan, kid. I bet you’ll be an even better hero than me.”

 

It seemed to be the right thing to say. Lily chattered at him so much he could hardly get a word in edgewise, not that he was trying. She was surprisingly lively given her state of being, and the longer Bucky stayed, the happier he was that she’d gotten his attention. They’d cycled through favorite colors, pizza toppings, and ice cream flavors before Lily turned her round face and button nose up at Bucky, expression suddenly quite serious. “Does your arm hurt?”

 

Bucky frowned ever so slightly, rapping his knuckles on his metal bicep. “It doesn’t really feel anything the way the rest of me does.”

 

“Not that part. The real part. Mine hurts.” Lily waved at her bandaged stump. “Will it stop when they make me a new arm?”

 

Bucky’s stomach went cold. Out there, it had been easy to ignore why exactly these kids were stuck here. They were active enough to just not think about the damage, and in their excitement, they’d only seemed to care about the superficial stuff. This was different. It hit harder and cut deeper. There was no being a hero here.

 

He had no idea how to answer that. To tell her that, decades later, he still woke up with a bone-deep ache where the prosthetic was anchored was out of the question. He understood all too well what the long-term fallout of a grievous injury was. He was familiar with far too many victims of it to miss the way recovery plateaued. There had been soldiers in the war, sent home to heal, though there was little hope they’d ever walk again. A SHIELD agent who’d been particularly kind to Bucky from the get go had been on desk duty for six months on account of a back injury. She still winced visibly when she thought no one was looking. Most people didn’t get all better, so much as they found a new barometer for what normal was. Saying that would only serve to frighten the girl, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

 

The alternative didn’t seem much better. Sure, he could tell her it would get all better. It sounded like a placating adult sort of thing to say. It was also a lie, and he was pretty sure heroes didn’t go around lying to kids.

 

“It’s a little different for everyone, and mine isn’t quite like yours will be,” he explained, shedding the jacket that often served as his uniform, and shoving the sleeve of his T-shirt aside. “They had to rebuild my shoulder. Yours won’t be like that. They’ll get you fixed up and ready to get back out there in no time.”

 

Much to Bucky’s relief, the answer seemed to satisfy Lily. She grinned at him so brightly it made Bucky’s chest ache. He was sorry he couldn’t stay longer, but he’d made plans. Plans he was already horrendously late for. He gave her a lopsided smile. “Listen. I wish I could stay, but I’ve got somewhere I have to be.”

 

Lily gasped. “Are you gonna go save people?”

 

“Nah.” Bucky laughed and ruffled her hair. “I have a date.”

 

If she was any less impressed that Bucky did things that weren’t saving the world, she certainly didn’t show it. Lily leaned in so quickly that Bucky didn’t quite realize what she was doing until her arm was slung around him. Skittish as he could be with physical contact some days, he only froze for a second before wrapping his arms around her back. The way her face was squished against his shirt front, he almost missed her speaking. “Come back and visit again?”

 

“Sure thing, kid,” Bucky promised, helping her settle back against the pillows before he stood up. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

 

The cameraman was gone by the time he left the room, and Bucky paused outside the door long enough to send Steve a message. In their line of work, showing up late was liable to be a sign of trouble. He was just pocketing his phone when one of the nurses walked by.

 

“You probably made her whole week, you know.” The nurse flashed him a smile, keeping in step as Bucky headed towards the ward’s exit. “She’s had a rough time of it.”

 

“Looked like,” Bucky agreed. He couldn’t help feeling a little bit pleased, despite his initial misgivings about all this. He wasn’t sure he deserved these kids’ enthusiasm, but it was a welcome experience all the same. Honestly, Bucky wasn’t sure if visiting with Lily had done her more good, or him. “She’s a good kid. You let her parents know that they ought to be pretty proud of her, would you?”

 

The nurse’s expression immediately sobered. “They passed in the same accident that took her limbs, I’m afraid. You’re the first visitor she’s had all week.”

 

Bucky meant to say something to that, but his throat felt full of glue. By the time he’d managed to cobble anything together, their paths diverged and the nurse left to tend to her duties. Nothing he could have said would have made any difference anyway. There were probably a hundred sad stories in this ward, and he’d have bet that nurse knew each and every one of them. This just happened to be the one that hit him hardest.

 

-

 

Bucky was glad he’d decided to walk. Even the few minutes it took to duck into a bathroom and change felt entirely too long. The antiseptic scent of hospital corridors stuck with him long after he left, but perhaps that was just his mind playing tricks. He’d done well tamping down the unwelcome memories that the place conjured up, and he wasn’t keen on dredging them up now.

 

The momentary high that had come with his visit teetered precariously, at odds with his encounter with Lily. It wasn’t anything about _her_ . Bucky had been sorry to leave so soon, but their conversation stuck with him, something mournful and troubling and _important_ he couldn’t quite shake.

 

Steve, saint that he was, was patiently waiting at the table when Bucky got there. It was on the second floor of a building, with tables outside overlooking the courtyard below, and Bucky sighed with relief to see that’s where Steve had requested. It wasn’t that Bucky couldn’t sit inside. It was just that this time of day, the place was noisy and dimly lit, and it set Bucky on edge.

 

If it had been anyone but Steve Rogers, Bucky would have assumed the seating arrangement was just a happy accident. Only, this was Steve sitting with his back to the other restaurant patrons, and he’d never have put himself in a vulnerable position unintentionally. The chair left open had it’s back to the brick outer wall of the restaurant, the most defensible seat on the porch.

 

The last few days had been particularly fragile, but Bucky thought he’d hidden it better. Apparently not. That, or maybe Steve just always assumed Bucky needed the security of knowing what was behind him. Whatever the case, Bucky swallowed his shame, sitting down across from Steve with a pasted-on smile. Only Steve was smiling back like he hadn’t seen Bucky in a month, and it was impossible to be in a bad mood looking at that.

 

At first, dinner was pleasant, and wasn’t that just the trend of the day? Things started out so well, right until reality came calling. They were wonderful until they weren’t and this was no exception. The hospital was an easy thing to talk about, all smiles and banter and Bucky grinning while he mimicked one of the nurses giving them grief for running down the hall. Even Lily - especially Lily - made him smile. Only Lily reminded him of their troubled conversation, and a question that nested at the back of his mind, refusing to be uprooted. Bucky dwelled more than he meant to, and animated conversation slowed to the most necessary responses.

 

If Steve minded, he hid it well. He had that understanding look that made Bucky want to hide in a closet and scream when it was directed at him. Steve spoke softly and carefully, and Bucky didn’t know if he wanted to thank Steve or strangle him. It wasn’t pity. Bucky couldn’t have stomached pity, and Steve would never have insulted him like that. All the same, it got Bucky’s hackles up, and he fell silent almost entirely, caught up in the broken circuit of a thought that wouldn’t come forward.

 

It was only himself he was irritated at. This was supposed to be fun, but like everything else, he couldn’t be trusted to respond like a normal human. He couldn’t even count on himself to respond _consistently_ . What was perfectly fine one day might unravel him the next, and today every thread felt loose. They muddled through somehow. That ‘somehow’ being Steve, who didn’t even have the decency to look annoyed by any of this. Tomorrow, when he felt better, that would probably be reassuring, but at the moment, it felt like this falling apart thing just happened enough to condition Steve’s responses. _Act like Bucky’s falling apart. You’re probably right,_ Bucky thought bitterly.

 

The background noise only pronounced the silence between them as they walked to the car. He hated himself for the way this wasn’t just easy. There’d been a before. There had been nights out laughing and dancing, before the weight of his own damage had threatened to crush him. There had been a time when the car that honked a block away wouldn’t have startled him. Now, he tensed all over, eyes automatically darting in the direction the sound had come from. There had been a time when he wouldn’t have hated the way Steve reached out to take his hand. No, that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t the way their fingers threaded together that bothered him. It was that Steve thought he had to do this. Steve fell in love with Bucky Barnes, but what he got back was a ghost full of ill-fitting memories, shoved into a skin he wasn’t always sure was his. What he hated wasn’t that Steve reached out to him. It was that that touch was a lifeline.

 

He was quiet on the drive home, though he couldn’t help noticing Steve’s choice of music. It wasn’t anything they’d have listened to before, but it was exactly the sort of thing Bucky listened to on the especially difficult days if left to his own devices. There was a subtle thoughtfulness to it the way there was with everything Steve did for him. Bucky despised the way that made him bristle. It shouldn’t. Of course Steve knew when the world skewed sideways on him, and it wasn’t as if Bucky’s self-soothing methods were state secrets. He knew it ought not bother him that Steve had both taken note and cared enough to do something about it, but that did nothing to calm his frazzled nerves.

 

The music did what he could not. Soft violins drifted through the speakers, crowding out Bucky’s sorrow and paranoia one pained thought at a time. For a little while, Bucky tried to stop thinking and just sink into the music. It quieted his mind when very little else did.

 

The music silenced abruptly once Steve pulled into the garage below their apartment building and turned off the car. Bucky had nearly dozed off, and scowled at the prospect of getting up again. The garage was full of dark corners and disembodied sounds, and as Bucky opened the door, he instinctively reached his hand under the seat to wrap his fingers around the hilt of a throwing knife. Steve must have put it back. Again. It was always there, no matter how often he forgot to return the thing. Tucking it into a pocket where it could be easily reached, Bucky slipped out of the vehicle and after Steve towards the elevator.

 

 

The elevator ride was a quiet one. Twenty-three floors felt like a long ride though, when he had nothing to say. There’d been a time even that small space would have been filled with banter and pleasant conversation. He _wanted_ to be that Bucky, but couldn’t figure out how to bridge the gap. Giving up on words, Bucky leaned against Steve, marveling at the way Steve’s arm immediately wrapped around his waist like they’d been doing this all their lives. If Bucky counted his life from the place where it felt like it started, where he fought through the fog and crawled out the other side, the all his life bit was almost true.

 

Bucky watched the elevator tick off one floor after another, finally reaching their stop. They’d been lucky, with the apartment door just a few steps away, or maybe building management just really liked Captain America. Either way, a dozen steps and the time it took to unlock the deadbolt was all it took to reach home.

 

The apartment was exactly as he’d left it, not that he had any reason to expect something different. Days like this were always difficult, when paranoia got the better of reason. Steve would always remind him it was normal to be paranoid in their line of work, but that was a hard thing to take comfort in when he’d checked the windows for the fourth time in an hour.

 

“I don’t know about you, but I’m beat,” Steve murmured, toeing off his shoes and hanging his jacket by the door. He looked nothing of the sort. Bucky’s lips pressed into a thin line, and his knee-jerk reaction was to take offense all over again, but that was preposterous. He didn’t even know what he was wound up about. Steve was smiling at him, that hopelessly fond look he got sometimes that made Bucky’s heart melt like an ice cube in a cup of coffee, and even here it hadn’t entirely lost its power. Bucky let himself be herded towards the hallway, to the room they shared. “Let’s go to bed?”

 

It could have meant any number of things, Bucky knew. He nodded his head at the open ended question, reserving the right to figure out how to define going to bed when they got there. Days like this, Steve was a chameleon, shifting to be whatever was needed. Bucky was as grateful for it as he was irritated by it. He’d be damned if he knew what he wanted, anyway.

 

Maybe distraction was what he needed. Bucky watched Steve shed his clothes piece after piece, revealing the bare skin beneath. There was never a time Bucky didn’t think Steve was rather gorgeous, but just now it meant very little to him. Bucky watched the way Steve’s muscles twitched and his chest rose and fell as he sat naked on the bed. A smattering of words could have their hands and mouths all over each other, but what he saw wasn’t a source of pleasure, at least not right now. It was solace and home, and though he couldn’t wriggle out of his own garments nearly quickly enough, the urgency wasn’t driven by lust.

 

If Steve had an opinion about the unceremonious way Bucky undressed and crawled onto the bed, he didn’t voice it. The rest of the world felt out of tune today, but Bucky sagged in Steve’s arms, and that was right. Steve’s chest pressed warmly to his back, and Steve’s arms curled around him, and no matter how deadly Bucky was, he felt safest right here. Bucky knew Steve couldn’t banish his demons. It wasn’t fair to ask him to try. They went quiet for a little while though, reduced to static Bucky could ignore in favor of the delicate way Steve’s fingers skimmed along his hip. It wasn’t fair to Steve that Bucky used him as a tether, but Steve surely knew, and kept letting him anyway.

 

It was all leading back to this, wasn’t it? He’d tried so hard to figure out how to tell Lily she might have to reframe what normal meant, but he hadn’t dared consider how that applied to him. Every time he felt like a stranger in his own skin, or forgot how to respond like a human being, every concession Steve made for the sake of his demons… Bucky always told himself it was temporary. This was just a waypoint on his way to being _better_ in some nebulous sense, but what if that wasn’t true at all? Maybe, for all his determination and struggle, this was as better as he was going to get.

 

He remembered some long lost version of himself, and Bucky had spent every waking moment since he’d extricated himself from Hydra trying to get back to that. His inability to relax and smile the way he once had always felt like a failure on his part, but maybe this was just fallout, like the ache in his bones that didn’t entirely go away. Perhaps he was chasing something as unreachable as his lost limb.

 

The thought was not a comforting one, at least not in any conventional way. It pulled hope out from under his feet that the things he hated most about what he’d become were just temporary thorns in his side. There was clarity in this, though. He could learn to adapt to the reality of the situation, so long as he knew what that reality was.

 

“Bucky. Come on. Come back to me.” The cadence of Steve’s voice was soft. The stress on the words though, gave Bucky the impression Steve had been trying to get his attention for a little while.

 

“Hmm?” Bucky tried to look at Steve, but couldn’t help closing his eyes at the warm, steady brush of his lover’s hands over his bare skin. There was a comfort and safety in this particular brand of contact, and as skittish as Bucky could be sometimes, he melted helplessly into this.

 

“You’ve been somewhere else all night.”

 

There was probably a question couched in that statement, but Steve wasn’t asking outright, and Bucky wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about it, anyway. He shook his head in an effort to clear it, and pressed a little closer. Maybe somehow the physical proximity would make up for how far away his mind was. “Sorry.”

 

“No, Buck. Don’t apologize.” Steve’s insistence was punctuated by a tender kiss that pulled a smile from Bucky in spite of everything. “Just come back to me.”

 

“I’m here. Just thinking,” Bucky promised, pressing back against Steve’s chest. They were good like this, despite their damage. Maybe because of it.

 

Steve let out a soft huff that made Bucky roll his eyes. He knew exactly what it meant. Just because Steve wouldn’t pry in so many words didn’t mean he wouldn’t find some other way to coax Bucky into spilling his guts. A lot had changed in the decades they’d lost, but apparently not that. He knew how this would play out. He’d hold off, and Steve would keep pushing, and eventually he was going to give up, anyway. It didn’t seem like a secret worth keeping, so Bucky surrendered. “...that maybe this is as good as it gets.”

 

“Is that a bad thing?” The question was punctuated by Steve’s fingers finding their way to press between Bucky’s. The metal slats didn’t register the warmth of Steve’s skin, but the pressure was comforting.

 

“Not _this_. This is… is more than I deserve,” Bucky was quick to try to explain. “I just meant me. I keep trying to be who I was, but I don’t know if I can go back to that, anymore.”

 

Bucky didn’t bother to protest when Steve rested a hand on the side of his face, or when that hand was used to guide his gaze towards Steve’s face. That he’d managed not to panic was a small victory in and of itself. He didn’t get the chance to dwell on it much, as Steve was already speaking. “You don’t have to go back to who you were. Bucky, the fact that you’re different now doesn’t mean there’s anything _wrong_ with you.”

 

“You say that, but all these things I remember coming so easily just...don’t anymore. You bend over backwards to adjust to the things that I can’t seem to.”

 

If it had been anyone else, Bucky might have thought the smile that pulled at Steve’s lips was mocking. Of course it wasn’t. Steve wasn’t that way. There was the faintest note of levity though, in the way Steve countered him. “Bucky. Time changes just about everyone. You don’t have a monopoly on becoming different from who you were. I know who I chose to be with, and I’m not bending over backward because I don’t think you can.”

 

“What would you call it, then?” Bucky wasn’t sure what he was searching Steve’s expression for, but his lover was nothing but earnest.

 

“I’d call it falling into step with someone I love. You’ve always had my back. Sometimes, I also get to have yours, is all.”

 

“I don’t want you to have to help me,” Bucky grumbled, not that there was much point.

 

“I don’t have to help you, Buck,” Steve insisted, pulling the tie from Bucky’s hair. Already, Bucky was letting his eyes slip shut in anticipation of what came next. There were fingers in his hair, the pads of them tenderly rubbing against his scalp as Steve whispered to him, “but I want to.”

 

Bucky knew the end of a debate when he heard one. He heaved a sigh, but left it at that. Maybe… just maybe Steve was right. Maybe. It was a conclusion better mulled over when he wasn’t mired in his own self-doubt, so Bucky shelved the idea, curling into Steve and enjoying being pet on. He was considering actually going to sleep, though his mind insistently turned Steve’s words over in his head.

 

“You want to help me?” he asked, the words already beginning to slur with sleep.

 

He could hear the smile in Steve’s voice as his lover responded. “You know I do.”

 

Everything was fading. There was only the warmth of Steve’s body against his, and the rhythm of a hand smoothing over the back of his head like he was an overgrown housecat. Words seemed difficult, but he managed to get one out. “Okay.”

 

\---

 

Bucky walked through the double doors of the children’s ward, flashing a smile to the woman at the nurse’s station. In one hand he had a bouquet of daisies.

 

He padded down the hallway, peeking into the room he’d met Lily in before. She was in bed still, watching whatever cartoon came in on the few channels the hospital televisions could access, and her expression lit up the moment she spotted him. “Bucky! You came back!”

 

“Hey kid.” Bucky grinned at her, deciding that was invitation enough to come in.

 

He set the vase of flowers on her bedside stand, and looked back, sort of expecting she’d be admiring them, but Lily wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was staring at the doorway instead, her eyes wide as saucers. “You brought Captain America?”

 

“Well…” Bucky murmured, gently ruffling her hair. “I thought, since you were kind enough to let me leave yesterday, that maybe you’d wanna meet my date.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find us on Tumblr! We're [DrowningByDegrees](drowningbydegrees.tumblr.com) and [Drjezdzany](http://drjezdzany.tumblr.com/) respectively.


End file.
